US media: John Howard, Bush’s “veritable bootlicker”

O my lord – how good are the opinion pieces at Harpers? Scott Horton has written a great piece, “The Bush Touch: turning friends into enemies“. Here’s an excerpt tracking the increasing sway held over foreign politicians by the charismatic visionary.

One by one the leaders on the world stage who put their faith in Bush and thoughtlessly did his bidding have fallen in disgrace, usually rejected by their own voters. The first to go were Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Spain’s José María Aznar. Then Britain’s Tony Blair was forced to surrender 10 Downing Street to his Chancellor of the Exchequer, to give Labour a fighting chance to hold a majority in the next election. In the last week, Jarosław Kaczyński, a conservative ally in Poland fell, and over the weekend, Bush’s most faithful follower in the entire pack, the veritable boot-licker John Howard of Australia. In each case, the association with George W. Bush was electoral cyanide to voters back home.

Horton has written extensively about the politics and human rights abuses of the Iraq invasion and is one of a number of journalistic voices warning against an attack on Iran, which will be dressed up under the justification ‘preemptive’. He is a lawyer, specializing (I believe) in human rights. He may also be a Jedi.

And although it sort of raises the cartoon bar foreverl out of reach, I had to repost this one by Mr. Fish because it’s just bogglingly good on so many levels.

Stigmata and a machine gun. Swoon. Something else I just realized – since Howard officially lost his seat today, he can now be officially compared to the only other Australian Prime Minister to suffer such ignominy: Stanley Bruce in 1928. 29? Whatever.

Point is, analysts have drawn the parallel that Bruce also pushed for unpopular industrial conditions for workers, with the difference being that his economy was in a shambles, while Howard’s going out with the numbers looking healthy. But check this out – I don’t think that there has ever been an Australian Prime Minister with two first names who hasn’t ended up getting their face stomped by the Australian people.

Stanley. Bruce. John. Howard. Sacked. Bye. Think about it.